by Loves Editor | Featured
Simply put, I am the son of a very brave woman. Anita, my birth mother, was just 16 when she discovered my existence. She knew there was nothing easy about being a pregnant unmarried teenager, but she never could have predicted all of the trials and obstacles she would have to conquer over the next nine months. When my birth father discovered that Anita was pregnant, he decided that he did not want to be a part of any of this. He chose to leave her to face these challenges alone.
After a great deal of prayer and thought, Anita knew that adoption was the right choice. While she was preparing for adoption and experiencing all of the changes and challenges of pregnancy, she was also determined to continue her education. Unfortunately, the Illinois schools in that era refused to accept pregnant teenagers. Anita’s grandparents told her about a program in Mesa, Arizona that would foster pregnant teens while they got ready to place their children in adopted homes, and there was a school close by that would accept my eager, strong, and increasingly pregnant birth mother. In a great leap of faith, Anita chose to move across the country to an unfamiliar place in order to achieve her goals of continuing school and preparing to place me for adoption.
My parents, Dave and Pam, had moved to Arizona from Chicago to start a business and, more importantly, a family. However, Pam was unable to have kids. For almost six years they agonized through the full range of tests and fertility treatments, but nothing worked. Finally, one day, my mother traveled to Patronato San Xavieran Church, an old Hispanic church in Tucson, Arizona. She prayed for the blessing of a child for hours and lit a prayer candle before she left. Nine months later, to the day, Anita gave birth to me, my parents’ first child.
When Anita gave me life, she also gave life to my mother. I can’t imagine my mom, Pam, without kids – she is just one of those people who was born to be a mother. After me, Dave and Pam adopted my sister Rachel, and then later their niece and nephew, Danny and Nina. We were a crazy, mixed-up, and very close family.
I always knew I was adopted, which is good because my sister Rachel and I are both Hispanic and our parents are both very white (we have a lot of jokes about that). I was always encouraged to ask questions and even contact my birth mother if I wanted. As a kid, though, I honestly wasn’t very curious about her. I loved my parents and my family and was happy with my life. I knew that my birth mother loved me and that she couldn’t take care of me because she was too young. At one point I wanted to know about any medical conditions that she might have passed on to me, but lucky for me I was in the clear.
Throughout my childhood Anita came to visit me a few times and had photos sent back and forth informing her I was doing well and or how life had been for my parents, but nothing that I was old enough to really remember. This changed at my high school graduation, when I met her for what felt like the first time. She had contacted me via Facebook and asked if she could come to see me graduate, and I said sure, of course you can. It was weird, though – the moment I saw her, I knew exactly who she was. I had never seen anyone who looked so much like me, or I guess, who I looked so much like.
Anita was married by then, and brought her husband, Dan, to meet me as well. We all went out to dinner and had a very nice (and only slightly awkward) time together. Anita and Dan have three beautiful daughters now, and I plan to fly out for one of their high school graduations in a couple months to spend some time with them. For some reason my little half-sisters are all very curious about their big brother.
My birth mother not only gave me life, she gave me a world of infinite possibilities. My adopted family gave me the support and opportunities to become anything I wanted, which lead to me becoming a nationally ranked motocross racer, graduating with a Master’s Degree in Organic Chemistry, and entering the field of nanotechnology. I have a whole life in front of me to make the world a better place, and it’s all because of my birth mother’s brave decisions and unparalleled strength. Thank you, Anita. Thank you for making, in my opinion, the hardest choice there is and for placing me with a family that I love with all my heart and who love me back even more.
Simply put, I am the son of a very brave woman. Anita, my birth mother, was just 16 when she discovered my existence. She knew there was nothing easy about being a pregnant unmarried teenager, but she never could have predicted all of the trials and obstacles she would have to conquer over the next nine months. When my birth father discovered thatAnita was pregnant, he decided that he did not want to be a part of any of this. He chose to leave her to face these challenges alone.
After a great deal of prayer and thought, Anita knew that adoption was the right choice. While she was preparing for adoption and experiencing all of the changes and challenges of pregnancy, she was also determined to continue her education. Unfortunately, the Illinois schools in that era refused to accept pregnant teenagers. Anita’s grandparents told her about a program in Mesa, Arizona that would foster pregnant teens while they got ready to place their children in adopted homes, and there was a school close by that would accept my eager, strong, and increasingly pregnant birth mother. In a great leap of faith, Anita chose to move across the country to an unfamiliar place in order to achieve her goals of continuing school and preparing to place me for adoption.
by Diane | Adopted Children, Featured
As a small child,
Even before I could talk,
My parents, meek and mild,
Told me of her,
“You came from another,
Someone we have never met, your “other mother”.
The stranger, your “other mother”, has blessed us,
Children, we could not have,
Her tears and pain,
Her gift of life and love,
Has been our gain.
Our Good Lord had a plan,
He was watching from above,
A new family was now mine to be,
One of happiness, security and love.
Cows and plows,
Track, drama and choir,
FFA, fairs, and dairy princess’,
This was life for me now.
Years passed with many unasked questions,
No answers to be found.
Did I look like her? Did she have red hair?
Tall or short, thin or round?
Birthdays, graduations, and my wedding day came and went,
Five children of my own,
Still, only in my mind,
My “other mother” could I find.
I prayed and asked the Good Lord,
“In your own good time,
Please bring her to me”,
Our Lord is so good and kind.
One June summer day,
The phone call was made,
My “other mother” was 90 minutes away,
We talked and talked, and
Planned to meet the next week.
Months have gone by,
Letters, visits, phone calls,
Tears and laughter started,
Though time kept us apart,
My “other mother” is filling her space in my heart.
Written By Diane
by Loves Editor | Featured
By Diane Noble
As a small child,
Even before I could talk,
My parents, meek and mild,
Told me of her,
“You came from another,
Someone we have never met, your “other mother”.
The stranger, your “other mother”, has blessed us,
Children, we could not have,
Her tears and pain,
Her gift of life and love,
Has been our gain.”
Our Good Lord had a plan,
He was watching from above,
A new family was now mine to be,
One of happiness, security and love.
Cows and plows,
Track, drama and choir,
FFA, fairs, and dairy princess’,
This was life for me now.
Years passed with many unasked questions,
No answers to be found.
Did I look like her? Did she have red hair?
Tall or short, thin or round?
Birthdays, graduations, and my wedding day came and went,
Five children of my own,
Still, only in my mind,
My “other mother” could I find.
I prayed and asked the Good Lord,
“In your own good time,
Please bring her to me”,
Our Lord is so good and kind.
One June summer day,
The phone call was made,
My “other mother” was 90 minutes away,
We talked and talked, and
Planned to meet the next week.
Months have gone by,
Letters, visits, phone calls,
Tears and laughter started,
Though time kept us apart,
My “other mother” is filling her space in my heart.
When my life in this world began,
And my “other mother” heard her call,
I do believe I was blessed,
I was given the greatest parents of all.
by Loves Editor | Featured
Eight families and twelve children finalized their adoptions on live television as part of the Today Show’s “Choosing Adoption” series.
by Loves Editor | Featured
“I’ve had a wonderful life. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t thank you for everything you’ve given me.” (Kate Snyderman to birthmother Cheryl)
by Loves Editor | Featured
A mother and a daughter, who had never seen each other in the flesh, were reunited after 51 years apart. As word spread around the airport of what was about to unfold, a crowd gathered and watched as Donna Geil, 67, of Brownsville, embraced her long-lost daughter Cricket Koch, 51, of Garland, Texas. “They’re like two peas in a pod,” an onlooker said. “My daughter sat next to her (Cricket) on the plane,” another spectator, her eyes filled with tears, said. “I don’t know why I’m crying, it’s just such an amazing story.”
Geil and Koch, their eyes also wet with tears, held each other for several minutes before Koch met two other virtual strangers: Geil’s husband, Jim, 66, and her other daughter, Kasundra Pierson, 41. Koch greeted each of them with a warm hug. “My heart is pounding,” she said. “The wait on the tarmac seemed like forever.” “I always wanted a sister,” Pierson said. “It would have been nice to have her all along but I’m so happy that I’ve got her now.”
Back in 1959, in Lancaster, Calif., 16-year-old Geil became pregnant by the man she thought she was going to marry. “I thought I was madly in love,” Geil said. “When I told the father, I thought he was going to say, ‘Let’s get married.’ But he took off.” Geil said she knew she couldn’t properly care for a child and neither could her mother, who was raising Geil’s younger siblings at the time. She decided to give the baby up for adoption. “I knew I had to do it and I don’t regret it, I wanted her to have a good life,” Geil said. “But I always prayed for her and asked God to give her a good home.”
Koch grew up as the only child in a Air Force family that lived in Panama, Albuquerque, N.M., and Texas. From a young age, her parents told her she had been adopted. She was in seventh or eighth grade, she said, when she first felt the urge to try to find her mother. “When I told my dad, he teared up,” Koch said. “ ‘But I’m your dad,’ he said. So I decided that, out of respect to him, I wouldn’t search for her.” After her adoptive father died, Koch decided the time had come to try to find her biological mother. “I’ve wanted this for almost 50 years, so I decided I had to do it,” she said. “I would have never been able to forgive myself if she had died before I got a chance to contact her.”
Koch found Geil thanks to a company named Worldwide Tracers. Last October, the mother and daughter spoke on the telephone for the first time. “I heard her voice and I just said, ‘Hello, it’s me,’ ” Koch said. “I teared up and I was trembling on the inside. It was just a feeling of overwhelming joy.” Mother and daughter talked for three hours that night. Both agree it was almost like they’d never been apart. “It felt like we’d known each other forever,” Geil said. “It was never awkward, it was comfortable. … Like a mother and daughter talking should be.” They’ve been in daily contact ever since.
Koch said she never felt resentment toward her biological mother for putting her up for adoption. In fact, she admires Geil for having the strength to do what was best for her, Koch said. “Having had kids myself, I think it would have been torture to give up part of myself like that,” she said. “But because of her, I never wanted for anything and I’ve had a great life.” After giving birth to her second daughter, Kasundra, Geil said, she began to wish that the baby had her sister by her side. “It was then I realized how important children were,” Geil said. “But I couldn’t try and find her because I respected her adoptive parents and because I was so thankful for what they did for her.”
Koch will spend nine days with the new branch of her family. She has never visited Oregon before, and because “she’s a bit of a city girl,” Geil, who lives on a farm, said she’s going to introduce her daughter to rural ways. “I’m going to take her out to shoot some coyotes,” Pierson added with a laugh. “We’re going to go to the coast, visit Crater Lake and everything else,” said Jim Geil, Donna’s husband. “Basically we’re trying to cram 51 years into about a week.”
Asked why she invited members of the media to the airport reunion, such a seemingly intimate moment, Koch said she hoped it would encourage other people to seek long-lost family members. “My message is that even 51 year later, you can still do it. There are people out there who can help you,” she said. “I’m just glad other people are getting to hear about it,” Jim Geil added. “You hear so many negative stories. It’s always nice to share a positive one.”
